Prominent Aussie lawyer says DOJ action on @1MDB flawed

By Azman Ujang

KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 (Bernama) --  The move by the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) to seize assets allegedly linked to 1Malaysia Development Berhad ( 1MDB) is legally flawed, according to a senior Malaysian-born Australian lawyer.

Quintin Rozario, a prominent litigation lawyer in Brisbane, said by making public statements on Malaysian individuals allegedly to have laundered illicit funds into the US, its Attorney-General Loretta Lynch had herself committed "excesses and breaches of natural justice".

Rozario told Bernama from Brisbane that Lynch overstepped the mark and her authority by concluding that an offence or offences had been committed by Malaysia or its 

agents.

" She went further by implying that they were guilty of the offence by making assertions without a scintilla of proof or a valid court decision that could back her assertions. In order for that to occur, the Malaysian defendants ought to first to have been heard. They were not," he said.

Rozario said it was a legal principle that even the most vile of criminals were deserving of and entitled to the doctrine of natural justice under the constitution.